BIRMINGHAM, Alabama - A Jefferson County judge today
heard arguments from lawyers about the release of confidential grand jury and Crime
Stoppers documents in the case of a former death row inmate who was granted a
new trial in the 2004 shooting death of a Center Point woman.

A prosecutor told Jefferson County Circuit Court
Judge Stephen Wallace that he can't find any recordings or transcripts from the
grand jury that indicted Montez Spradley in the death of Marlene Jason as she
returned home from shopping for clothes for her grandchildren.

The prosecutor also said he did not have any of the Crime Stoppers
information.

Spradley's conviction and 20-year sentence for intimidating a different
witness was upheld by the appeals court. Spradley had been on death row before
the appeals court overturned the capital murder conviction.

Wallace said today that he was ordering Crime Stoppers
to produce records on the Spradley case for his review to decide whether the
records contain what Spradley's attorneys are seeking and whether they should
be allowed to have them.

Spradley's defense attorneys had filed
a motion seeking any Crime Stoppers payment records to informants, the identity
of those paid, and any information about other potential suspects that law
enforcement may or may not have pursued in their investigation. Prosecutors
have fought the release of those records.

If any of the key witnesses from
Spradley's first trial received money through the Crime Stoppers program, or
reported information through the Crime Stoppers program inconsistent to their
trial testimony, it would affect their credibility, according to the defense
motion. Three witnesses gave testimony inconsistent with their police
statement, physical evidence and with each other, according to Spradley's
defense motion.

Defense attorneys know Spradley's
former girlfriend was paid $5,000 from the Governor's reward program and $5,000
from the Barber s Dairy Reward program. The $5,000 through the Barber s Dairy
program may have been processed through Crime Stoppers, according to the motion.

The girlfriend may have received
other money from Crime Stoppers, the motion states.

The confidentiality is no longer the issue, one of Spradley's
attorneys, Richard Jaffe, argued today.

Wallace asked that if everybody knows who the
informants were, what is the point of protecting them.

Deputy Jefferson County District Attorney Mike Anderton
said he doesn't have the Crime Stoppers information. "If they are aware of who
the informant is, that is news to me," he said.

Also, Anderton said, Crime Stoppers depends on the confidentiality
of the process in order to get people to step forward with tips about who may
have committed a crime.

Wallace also heard arguments about defense attorneys
request to get access to recordings or records of the grand jury testimony in
Spradley's case.

Wallace last June had granted defense attorneys
motion, in part, ordering that the grand jury notes and transcripts be
delivered by prosecutors to him so he could review them to decide whether the
grand jury information should be released to defense attorneys.

Prosecutors notified Wallace on
Nov. 30 that they had searched, but could not find any grand jury transcripts
or recordings. On Jan. 14 defense attorneys served a subpoena on a court
reporting company seeking the records.

Anderton filed a motion seeking to quash that subpoena.
He said today that the defense attorneys should not be allowed to go to the
court reporting service to get secret grand jury testimony, which would be
illegal for the company to provide anyway.

Jaffe said they had subpoenaed the records just to
identify if the recording company had the records.

Wallace asked Anderton if the records exist.

"Not that I know of," Anderton said.

Wallace said that it was "surprising" that
prosecutors didn't have recordings, particularly in a capital murder case.

Anderton said that sometimes the grand jury
proceedings were not recorded around the time the Spradley case was heard because
of budget problems. "We're not required to keep recordings of them anyway," he
said.

The district attorneys office now has a contract
with a reporting service and has recordings of all the grand jury proceedings,
which are confidential anyway, Anderton said.